Human Dignity and Bioethics

480 | Daniel P. Sulmasy, O.F.M.
by pain, and most of us also know undignified human beings who
have spent their whole lives in the pursuit of pleasure. Basing morality
squarely on a balance between pleasure and pain has seemed,
since the time of Aristotle, to be an anemic account of morality and
human dignity, and one that most people would reject. 22
Second, some might think that Hobbes was right—that human
dignity depends upon one’s market price. But there are problems with
such a conception of human dignity. The unemployed, the severely
handicapped, the mentally ill, and all others who cannot contribute
to the economic well-being of society would then have no dignity.
Yet our society has gone to great lengths to recognize the dignity of
such persons. If we did not believe that human dignity remains even
if people are disabled and lose their economic value to society, then
we would not be making access ramps for them. This Hobbesian
conception of dignity seems inconsistent with some of our most basic
moral and social views.
Third, some might think that human dignity depends upon the
active exercise of freedom. Dignity, on this view, is the value we give
to entities that actively express a capacity for rational choice. But this
view is also hard to sustain consistently. One would have to hold that
those who have lost control of certain human functions, or have lost
or never had the freedom to make choices, have lost or have never
had dignity. This would mean that infants, the retarded, the severely
mentally ill, prisoners, the comatose, and perhaps even the sleeping
would have no human dignity. This seems obviously wrong.
Now some might suggest that these are “straw man” arguments.
What counts, they would aver, is the possibility of exercising control
and freedom, not the actual exercise of control and freedom. One
might suggest that some individuals without full control and freedom
nevertheless deserve to be treated with dignity either because
they have a potential for exercising such a capacity (so that children,
for instance, come to be regarded as placeholders for actual persons
with dignity), or they have a history of having exercised such a capacity
(so that the demented, for instance, come to be regarded as
remnants of persons with dignity). 23 But these arguments are quite
tenuous. Who would feel dignified and secure as a placeholder or
a remnant? Further, these arguments still cannot answer why those
who never could and never will make free, rational choices (such as